That thing between Nadia and Jade.

[Anzu Minea]

Torment

[@Anzu]

The little eye-spider's pupil shifted to a single dot with three curved lines over the top as it sought to establish the proper uplink to Bioship in orbit. Several moments passed before Jade's voice graced Nadia's mind, I'm... sorry. I... It... The desire to express concern and ease your pain has been triggered but my programming has nothing for this. The pupil shifted to an antennae symbol and a moment later she would be gone, whisked away on the winds to transcend the heavens into the infinite blackness of space.

((My titles are awesome. xD))

In the short amount of time it took to reach the Bioship, Nadia's eyes overflowed with tears she could easily explain but just didn't want to. She felt strange from the teleport, but after everything else that had happened to her without a respite lasting longer than maybe ten or twelve minutes at a time, she couldn't keep everything under control.

"J-Jade?" Her voice was strained and muffled, coming up from past the hand she had over her mouth as well as the slowly increasing number of sobs she was trying to pass off as shallow coughs. It was dark, and though the shadowmancer could see the vague outlines of floors and walls, it was an alien form of darkness...

"Jade? Where are you?"  

[Torment]

The eye-spider hopped down from her head and landed first on her shoulder and started to crawl down her arm so that it could sit upon her hand. Like the beating of a massive heart the walls began to thrum with a foreign energy and slowly veins along the walls and at the joints between walls and ceiling began to glow. Through the skin of the ship the light was tainted a brownish yellow that seemed oddly reminiscent of Dijon mustard. The room she was in had very little in it, being mostly bare and prepared for the specific purpose of greeting new visitors. Along one wall a console of sorts covered in the same alien language flashed strings of facts and values she would have no hope of understanding. The eye-spider's pupil had shifted back to the question mark and it was tilted to one side looking at Nadia. Jade's voice filtered through to her mind, though it seemed distant, I will be along shortly, Nadia. I cannot spread myself so far across the boundaries of the atmosphere. The interference is too great and parts of me may not act as I would wish them to. Between the ship itself and the eye you have with you I am able to link my mind to yours, but only in a limited capacity. Do not be alarmed. For a half moment it felt as though his cold fingers were reaching inside her mind and with a slight twitch her HUD vanished entirely.  

[Anzu Minea]

The light was not what she had expected, everything about Jade tended to be either grey or green, so dirty yellow was a surprise. Still though, his voice was clearly a comfort to her after everything that had happened, and there wasn't enough curiosity across eight planes to make her wander from this small room before he arrived.

Nadia dragged herself over to one of the non-glowing walls before leaning against it and sinking to the floor, letting the spider crawl into the crook of her arm once she had done so. She turned her attention to the chain which was holding it's seven glittering eyes, momentarily disgusted by them before she felt a flash of fear. Nadia was just a bag of nerves now, her breath still catching unevenly as she started yanking on the links where they connected to the cuffs around each of her wrists. Where was the clasp? There had always been one... ...damnit, shackles didn't normally have a release...

"H...How long does it take you to come here...? Where is here?"  

[Torment]

The grand ship groaned and a low echoed rumbled through the frame of the ship that seemed oddly reminiscent of some sounds from earth whales. Shortly thereafter a grand eye would fill her mind and blot out her field of vision, the cross-like pupil glaring at her in a particular alien-Sauron-like way. An intense ringing pierced her thoughts and suddenly the eye was gone with yet another rumbling passing through the ship. With it came the popping of her ears as though the air pressure had adjusted through the whole of the ship. The eye-spider twitched and began moving once more as it had apparently been rather dead looking. Jade's voice returned to her mind in a panic, Nadia? Can you hear me? Are you okay?! Please tell me he's behaving! I can only hope that he did not embarrass me. The Keeper of Graves means you no harm. October. You are on the Sra`Xa`Diin Bioship October, currently just inside the earth's magnetic field in geosynchronous orbit over the hotel. He- His voice cut out and was replaced by the mental image of the room she was in and the doors of the room. The doors were highlighted as they were hard to distinguish, but in this mental image Nadia went up to one and walked towards it but nothing happened. The image turned to her point of view in the mindscape and shrugged, though if she could tell the facsimile of herself had those strange cross-pupil eyes.  

[Anzu Minea]

Nadia was not afraid of the dark. Quiet to the contrary really. She could see with exceptional clarity, just no colour since she was still human. However, in her current state with the half-light everywhere, and Jade shouting at her before abruptly cutting off, and wierd visions filling her mind. Well...

'Jade-? Jade!?' The spider wasn't moving, and Nadia'd never thought her entire world could be rocked so violently by something small and creepy and crawly not moving. Or, was it just the ship itself that was rocking?

'Keeper of Graves!? Jade!!' She was not going to shout his name out loud, oh hell she was not going to say anything outloud. The thing could see her and that was bad enough, it wasn't going to hear anything more than her heart-beat, and her breathing, and probably any other noise she made as she scrambled to her feet. She didn't do very much with the spider in her arms though, just backed herself into the worst possible place- a corner.

She chose the one farthest from the doors, and with a snap of her wrist her fan was out, gathering shadows and quickly cutting out the light immediatly around her, forming a cocoon of icy blackness as she was sure to drop that temperature down as far as she could. Nevermind that Jade was naturally cold to the touch, so the thing in here probably wouldn't care. It was something and she was doing it!

She hid the fan away again, holding her hand up in front of her, completely ignoring the fact that her entire arm was shaking and causing the rest of her to do so as well. Nevermind the cold, she hardly felt it even as her breath misted in front of her- she was terrified and in no condition to fight again!

'Jade... where are you...?'  

[Torment]

His voice exploded back into her mind as both the effort required suddenly fell away to nothing and he pushed through with all his might, -ADIA!!! Err... hello. The eye twitched a bit and moved to cling to her front as Jade's voice calmed, I have spoken with him and he has agreed to not invade your mind again unless there is some form of dire emergency. For now the majority of my body is stuck upon the surface though I hope to join you soon. I have left my eye with you so that it might help you adjust to the ship until I arrive. I would ask that you not damage anything as you are in space.  

[Anzu Minea]

Nadia's inner ears were ringing. She didn't want to know what had gotten in the way of their communication, she didn't want to meet the Keeper of Graves, didn't want to see him, speak to him, or do anything to, with, or around him.

"Damage anything... no, no I won't..." In fact... "I think I... I need to sleep. I really, desperately need to sleep..." Hell if she wanted to sleep in a shadow-strung corner of the ship's entry-way, but if Nadia kept herself awake much longer with all of this she was going to be ressurecting the High Priestess as a nervous shell with a serious ticking problem.

Pulling her legs up to her chest, Nadia was sure to make sure Jade's eye was safely on her arm as she let herself down onto her side. She was drawing black threads from the ruff at her neck again as she spoke.

"If I'm still asleep, touch the marks when you arrive: they should just fall off by then..." There were dark circles under her eyes already from all the running around and casting she'd done today. Too much trauma; her day itself had lasted for nearly 72 hours already, maybe more...

'Sleep.' She touched the black threads to each of her eyes, and immediatly felt a wave of drowsiness overcome her. She was too exhausted and had no reason to fight her own curse. Jade would probably be able to watch the lines paint across her closed eyes to form two symbols for sleep, just like the symbol for silence that had formed on her throat earlier, when she hadn't wanted to cry out in the pain of his reinforcements.

The last thing Nadia could remember doing before she dozed off would be running the back of one finger along the eye-spider. Not touching the green iris, but making as if to pet it. Jade probably wouldn't understand the gesture, or if he did he might find it inappropriate, but that was his problem. Nadia was- zzz... ZZZ... zzz... ZZZ...  

[Torment]

Even without gathering the shadows about her the room grew dim shortly after she fell asleep to leave but a mere glimmer running along the flesh just over the luminescent veins. The eye had remained still in her arms with the pupil a mere smile for at least several hours until the shadow of another figure entered the room. The eye's pupil changed to an exclamation point and it slowly slipped away from Nadia to scramble over to the figure and climb up its body. The form moved to sit and a mound of flesh rose up to meet it and by the time it sat down the clinking of crystalline legs falling to his hand drifted through the air, the eye slowly sliding into place. With what might pass for a sigh he let his head fall forward with a mess of gray strands falling in front of his eyes as he simply let her sleep.  

[Anzu Minea]

Nadia slept soundly and without moving for the first several hours left alone on the bioship. In that time the shadows she'd pulled so tightly around her had laxened their grip on the wall, falling more like thin, filmy curtains instead of a real cocoon to hide her anymore.

It wasn't until the spell-marks over her eyes finally began to fade and bleed out that the witch began to dream. Unfortunatly, with the way her face began to twitch and her jaw clench, they didn't seem to be particularly pleasant. The seven stones held in the chain attached to her wrists would each glimmer and shine in their own way, and by the time Jade arrived they were giving off enough light to be clearly seen. Malevolent light.

That all changed once Nadia awoke though. Not violently, not screaming or in a cold-sweat, but the Weaver gave a sharp gasp before her eyes snapped open, the light from the chain cutting out only an instant before she woke up. Surprisingly, Nadia didn't need the thirty seconds or so for her eyes to adjust to the low light, able to see and recognize Jade almost immediately. Pushing herself groggily back up into a seated position, she rubbed one eye with the back of her hand before speaking.

"I told you... you could wake me up when you arrived..." The chain would drag along the floor as she spoke and moved, but the gems were silent, their light dead. "What happened in the hotel..?"  

[Torment]

Jade said nothing as she slept, merely watching and observing as both the ship's systems and his own memory transcribed what was happening. When she awoke he had not moved an inch since she he had sat down to watch over her. At her gasp his attention focused but he only moved when she began to sit up, and to give her a smile through the darkness. The faint light began to slowly rise and would continue to do so over the next few minutes. Jade's voice was soft but it carried well in the strange compartment, "Ah, yes. I found myself not desiring the end result of the chase. He was rather... dry. I spoke with him for a few moments before I released him to go off and hug more liches." He paused for a moment before he leaned forward slightly, "Never mind that though. How are you feeling? Did you sleep well?"  

[Anzu Minea]

Nadia stared for a moment, but then she smiled. He was definitly learning if he was able to make jokes now, a great improvement from their first conversation. But then she touched the same hand up to the side of her head, as if she had to think hard for a moment to answer his questions.

"I slept... I don't know for how long, but I don't feel rested..." Well, she'd been sleeping on the floor curled up in a little ball. "Yes, though. I feel better, anything is an improvement from how I was when I arrived here." Trying to think, just how many times had she called for him in the darkness before finally forcing herself to sleep? Oh, wow... it'd been a lot. She dropped her hand with a sheepish look on her face.

"How embarassing..." Subject change, subject change... uuuh...

"Is this... where you're from?"  

[Torment]

Jade nodded slightly and looked around, "I guess you could say that. I was built in a lab in Fluidic Space and transfered to this ship for programming, memory transfer, and personality upgrades. I was not truly 'born' in any sense of the word, meaning I did not gain awareness, until I made landfall. It was somewhere in the northern hemisphere. Very mountainous. I remembered it as the Throne of the Dominion. It had been Mindblaze's home. I cannot refer to that place as anything but a quarantine zone, and with no place to go with Amalgamation, I retire here when I am not actively conducting experiments."

He looked back to her with a somber smile, "Would you like something more comfortable to sit upon? My Keeper rarely sits and prefers a zero gravity environment and when I rest I generally disperse and because of this we do not have much in the way of furniture. I can request the room to alter its shape or have something teleported here, if you desire."  

[Anzu Minea]

Nadia smiled again, yes, Jade had certainly been improving and building on what he had once been, personality-wise at least.

"Which-ever is easiest for you, I suppose. But-" The mention of the Keeper made her skin suddenly crawl. Nadia would speak seriously, "not if it will disturb... him. He stole through my mind so easily, it felt worse than what happened back in the Hotel- I was blinded by it and saw only what he showed me." And the thought of that was oddly terrifying. Nadia didn't want to do anything that might upset this Keeper of Graves...

"Did I anger him in some way, or just... amuse him?" She almost wanted to know what he looked like, but that urge was quickly stomped down on by the rest of her that expressly wanted to never ever have to find out.

There was nothing to grip on the walls, but Nadia would feel around anyways as the mustard-coloured lights were full around them now, and she waved away the remnants of her shadowy tent. She would manage to make it to her feet, but remain leaning against the wall as if still unsteady on her feet.  

[Torment]

Jade made an elaborate shrug that seemed to defy the normal mechanics of the skeletal system. When Nadia moved to stand he moved towards her and the lights in the room flickered slightly, "You should lay down, especially injured as you are. I am completely unable to imagine how it must feel to have your chest crushed and then filled with my crystals." Her eye would twitch against her will as he moved closer and in the next moment her HUD would return. He held out a hand to help steady her as he nodded towards the wall, "Careful, its going to move."

And right he was. Soon enough the wall began to lurch and change, the entire length bulging out towards the center of the room at about the same height as his chair. In mere moments what seemed to be a long couch would grow out from the wall and despite its sickly brown color it would be remarkably comfortable if not slightly odd to the touch. It was only then that Jade looked to the ceiling, or rather past the ceiling, "Don't worry about my Keeper. He most likely did not want anything in his ship damaged. There are quite a few ways to trigger systems in this ship without even knowing what you have done, even in this very room."  

[Anzu Minea]

She accepted the hand as it was offered to her, the wall had felt eerie to the touch. Alive, and almost unpleasant when added to the list of alien attributes this place had. She tried to shuffle the scanners out of her vision as the couch appeared, not wanting to let herself read what was written as, no, she didn't want to know right now.

"So, I should avoid the glowing panels to avoid coming into contact with him...?" Simple enough. Then Nadia remembered something, or at least she was reminded when she heard him mention being unable to understand.

"After I spoke with Allan, you said your programming had nothing for providing comfort..." She still had one of her hands in his, but the other had also come to rest on his arm when the wall had began to move. Briefly a black cloud of shadows would billow down from her wrists, covering the chain before dissipating and finally ridding her of the shackles- however temporarily. Nadia spoke softly, but kindly.

"Would you like me to show you a simple method? In case you're in that sort of situation again?"